


Tectonics

by MuddlingAlong



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Also nice stuff, F/F, Just post Will's death, Two Endings, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:34:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9469589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuddlingAlong/pseuds/MuddlingAlong
Summary: Post 5.16, Alicia and Kalinda try and come to terms with their grief, and end up doing something else.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I was going through old bits and pieces I had written and I discovered this which I'd never put up, figured I should even though TGW is long since gone. Interested to hear people's thoughts about season 7 though- I never watched it...
> 
> This has two alternate endings, ending One for angst and heartbreak, ending Two for a bit of happiness (yay). I can never decide how Alicia felt about Kalinda hence the two endings for y'all.

She thought she heard the doorbell ring, but she was somewhere between her fourth and fifth glass of wine, and couldn’t really be bothered to answer it anyway. She refilled her glass, though her hand was not quite steady enough to prevent drops of the red liquid from falling to the table. Sober Alicia would have cleaned it up immediately, but this alcohol-fuelled Alicia couldn’t quite bring herself to care. Through the drunken haze of feelings that were sitting heavy like rain clouds in her brain, very few clear thoughts permeated and each of those made her toes curl and her eyes sting, so she reached for her glass and took deep, purposeful gulps, trying to drown her own mind into silence.

Again, the sharp peal of high-pitched, electronic notes reached her ears. Realising that there must actually be someone at the door, she sighed clumsily. She screwed her eyes shut and then opened them wide, stood up a little unsteadily and made her way to the door, completely intending to tell whoever it was to leave her alone. She fumbled at the door, trying to open it, and, on realising it was locked, fiddled with the key until it clicked, and opened the door.

At first, she was sure that she was more drunk than she had thought. But after what felt like ten minutes, during which her gaze at the woman in front of her was met with unflinching confidence, she finally swallowed her shock and lowered her incredulous gaze to the floor.

“Kalinda,” the word felt unfamiliar, which was possibly partly due to her wine-wrapped tongue, and it seemed to fall out of her mouth without her realising.

“Alicia,” Kalinda’s voice was soft and low, her usual self-assured voice inflected with tones of concern.

“What- why are you here?” The alcohol that was flowing through her bloodstream was only perpetuating the confusion at seeing Kalinda.

Kalinda smiled wanly, she could see that Alicia was having to hold on to the door to prevent herself from overbalancing, and recognised the hesitations and stumbles of Alicia’s normally eloquent and deliberate speech as being brought on by wine. 

“I wanted to check that you were alright. I know I rang you earlier, but I just wanted to be sure that you weren’t-” Kalinda broke off, as Alicia’s eyes travelled up to meet hers. 

The pain and the hurt she was obviously feeling were etched across her face like scars, and Alicia heard the lump forming in the other woman’s throat as she said quietly and definitely, “I’m so sorry, Alicia.”

Alicia tried to respond, but she was suddenly full of tears and just nodded hopelessly. She opened the door wider so that she could let the other woman in, and closed the door behind them both. The familiar thought of Kalinda and Peter hit her brain like it did every time she saw her, but for this evening the accompanying flood of feelings didn’t follow. For the first time in two and a half years, looking at the younger woman didn’t fill her with disgust, betrayal and anger: the automatic response held at bay by the mixture of alcohol and grief. She knew that Kalinda was one of the only other people who had cared about Will as much as she had. Kalinda and Will had been good friends for years, and the break in Kalinda’s voice on the phone had been like another tiny shot in her own broken heart. She followed her to sit on the couch, curling her legs up under her and cradling her glass of wine with fingers that were beginning to feel like they weren’t her own.

-

Kalinda took in the apartment around her. The lights were off, the apartment lit only by the faint glow of the half moon and the stars shining through the window: Alicia had neglected to close the curtains. There was an empty bottle of wine on the floor and a nearly empty bottle on the table. She sat upright, rigid on the plush couch, uncomfortably aware that she was very sober compared to Alicia’s fluid drunkenness, that she hadn’t been in this apartment for a long time, and that she still didn’t really know where she stood. 

She had left Jenna just half an hour ago, had allowed herself to be dropped back at Lockhart Gardner. She could tell that the policewoman had been worried about her, but she had purposefully ignored the concern which had made her feel more alone than ever ¬and refused the offer of company for the night. But it had been worse in the offices: the walls there were screaming at her, memories tearing at her skin, and she’d almost run out the doors from Will’s face that was staring at her from everywhere she looked. On arrival at Alicia’s building, an uncharacteristic indecisiveness had kept her hovering outside for fifteen minutes as she debated just getting back in her car and driving and driving and driving away from Alicia, from Will, from Kalinda. But her loyalty for her friend had carried her up the stairs and pressed the doorbell twice, and now that she was sitting with the shell of Alicia, she was glad she had come.

“What did you do? After you hung up earlier?” Alicia’s voice was hesitant and cracked, but Kalinda answered truthfully.

“I went to see Will. And then Jeffery Grant.” Unsure which idea was more painful: Will’s corpse or Will’s murderer, Alicia just breathed in deeply and shakily. Kalinda continued, “I thought- I wanted to… I thought that if I saw him- Jeffery Grant- that it would make more sense. But it’s still just as meaningless.” Her voice was shaking, and she stopped talking, determined as ever not to show weakness.

“What did- what did he look like?” The first few tears were escaping from Alicia’s eyes.

Kalinda looked at her, and again spoke with her painful honesty, her own mind filling with the image of her friend’s cold, white, motionless body. “Like he was dead. Like- like he was- I can’t…” Again she had to stop talking to stop herself from crying. She leant backwards against the couch.

Even in her drunken state, Alicia could see that Kalinda was in pain, and she put her glass of wine down. “Sorry, Kalinda, I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m just not sure what to do anymore.”

Kalinda turned to face her friend, sorrow etched on her normally expressionless face, “it’s fine. I- I don’t know either”

Alicia brought her eyes up to meet the other woman’s and then collapsed. Her body shook and rocked with emotion, the tears she had kept firmly at bay for hours tumbled down her cheeks like rocks down a cliff face. Faint cries of sheer despair escaped from her lips pressed so tightly together. Kalinda reacted on instinct. She shifted across so she was sitting much closer to Alicia and her arms embraced her tightly. With one hand round her back and the other at the nape of her neck, she held her close, stroking the back of her head and absorbing the racking sobs of Alicia’s body into her own. She could feel the wetness of Alicia’s tears pressed into her shoulder, but she only pulled her closer and ran her hand up and down her back soothingly.

She felt Alicia’s pain as if it was her own. Will had been her only true friend for nearly three years, the only one she would have considered opening up to. She had been unfailingly loyal to him since she had met him, and couldn’t even really put her finger on why she trusted him more than she trusted the rest of the world. He respected her, never pushed her for information, and was never judgemental about her life. The idea that she had lost him made her feel more alone than she had ever felt.

-

A slight sense of shock filtered through the barriers of Alicia’s tears, surprise at Kalinda’s so obvious show of affection: she couldn’t remember ever having hugged her before.  
But she let herself be held with one hand on Kalinda’s shoulder blade, the other trapped between her own body and the couch, and let Kalinda stroke the back of her neck soothingly, rocking her very slightly. Part of her distress was the shock. Today had been more than she could cope with. Will hadn’t just been an affair. He had represented a different life to her. Even when she was denying herself him, he had always been a possibility, something like a life raft to cling onto when things with Peter were hard. Now that he was gone she had to stop dreaming.

He had understood her in ways that others could not: not Peter, Owen, maybe even Kalinda. When they had allowed themselves to love one another for that brief time, she had barely ever been happier. The knowledge that she had lost him was too hot to hold, but she couldn’t drop it.

His face was swimming behind her eyes, and she whimpered slightly, his features softer and more blurry in memory. She felt smooth fingers caressing the back of her neck in her hairline, and gripped her back more tightly. Kalinda was the only one who really knew what Will had been to Alicia, knew what this loss must be doing to her, and could let Alicia feel what she had to feel.

-

Kalinda could feel increased pressure of fingers just above her bra strap and returned by lowering her hand to the small of Alicia’s back and pressing it there, feeling their temperatures equalize at the places where her skin made contact with the wool. She felt the salty wetness on her neck, the stuttering ragged breath ghosting her collar bone and tears were now starting to dampen her cheeks.

With a shock that almost made her physically jump, she realised that it wasn’t warm breath she was feeling on her neck, but that Alicia was planting tiny tear-tainted kisses from behind her ear to her jawbone. Torn between not wanting it to stop and being very aware of how much alcohol had been consumed before she had arrived, Kalinda just continued her massaging of Alicia’s neck and tried not to breathe. She felt each pressure on her neck like they were laced with fire, a fire which was moving up towards Kalinda’s ear, grazing the lobe, across her cheekbone and then finally finding contact with her lips.

The kiss was short and sweet, and Kalinda instinctively pulled away, removing her hands from Alicia. She could feel the slight coldness on her shoulder blade from Alicia’s hand that had been pulled away. On her lips the taste of salty tears and red wine mingled, reminding her again that Alicia was by no means in the right state of mind to do anything like this, however much she herself ached for it.

“Alicia, no, don’t.”

Her face registered dazed confusion and hurt, “why?”

“You’re very drunk, Alicia, you don’t want this, and we’re both of us- grieving, in shock, it would be wrong.”

Alicia leant forward, put one hand on Kalinda’s outstretched leg and the other on the back of her neck, pulling the other woman’s face towards her, “I do want this Kalinda, I do want this.”

Kalinda’s heart and soul and mind were almost burning in turmoil. She had waited for more than five years for Alicia to say things like that and she ached to let herself go and feel things she had tried to keep buried for so long. But she was too sober, and Alicia was too drunk for this to be right. “No, Alicia, no you don’t.” She tried to fight against the resentment in her voice, and failed.

“Kalinda, I can’t be alone tonight.” The tears had stopped falling down Alicia’s face as she had been distracted, but they were once again threatening to spill over.

“I won’t leave you. But-” the walls of defensiveness and self-control that she kept so carefully maintained around her were straining fit to collapse at the sight of Alicia’s face, the taste of her lips lingering on her own. Alicia’s knee was digging into the inside of her thigh. “But I’m not going to stay with you- that way.”

 

 

One.

Kalinda gently removed Alicia’s hands from her and held them in her own, stroking her knuckles and squeezing, soothing. “Alicia, I know that this isn’t what you want. You’re just- in shock- you’d regret this tomorrow morning, I promise you.”

Alicia’s face fell and her head drooped. It broke Kalinda’s heart all over again to realise that the person she had loved so quietly and so solidly for more than five years would only ever come close to reciprocating any kind of romantic feeling when both ridiculously inebriated and grieving for the person she really loved. But she had dealt with worse pain. She brought herself to her feet and pulled Alicia up by her hands, supporting her around the waist with her left arm, transferring Alicia’s clammy grasp to her right, and slowly walked the two of them to Alicia’s room.

She sat Alicia down on the edge of the bed and switched on the light. Her room had barely changed since the Carter Wright appeal. She groaned internally at the memory- that had been the biggest exercise of self-restraint of her life. Apart from this evening.

Alicia’s eyes had closed tight shut against the light, her face screwed up in discomfort, and so Kalinda turned the light off, letting the dim glow from the lounge and the window guide her. She began to remove Alicia’s clothes; her shoes first which she placed next to the bed, and then her jumper which was more difficult as it required the coordination of two very sloppy arms, but she hung it over the chair at Alicia’s vanity.

Not willing to do anything unwanted, Kalinda enquired, “Alicia, do you want me to take off your jeans?” and was answered with a nod. Her heart sank at the idea of having to do the things she had dreamt about so often on those long lonely nights in her apartment, in a completely different and much less erotic situation. As she unbuttoned the top of her trousers, Alicia lay back completely, stretched out over the bed so that Kalinda could pull them down. Swallowing a gulp that was more of a groan at this action, Kalinda began to ease the denim down, Alicia shifting to aid the movement. As her fingers came into contact with bare skin, both women shivered: Alicia due to the tickle of Kalinda’s touch, and Kalinda because no matter how many times she had imagined what Alicia looked like stretched out underneath her or how her skin felt under her caress, it did not even come close to the heady rush of seeing and feeling it for real.

Partly in order to actually be helpful and partly to give her a moment to gather her senses back together, Kalinda left to the kitchen to get a glass of water. She spent longer than was necessary filling the glass, hoping that Alicia would take the opportunity to get herself underneath the covers.

But on her return she found that Alicia had removed every remaining scrap of clothing and was lying face down with her head in the pillows. Kalinda paused in the doorway, instinct screaming at her to just run and run and not look back because she was in oh so deep now and nothing good will ever come from seeing this. But a snuffling sound coming from the head of the bed and an entirely selfish desire to stay drowned out her flight impulse tenfold.

“Alicia,” she had to clear her throat before she could speak. She wasn’t going to mention the lack of clothes. “Alicia, shall we get you into bed?”

This caring, gentle, motherly Kalinda had sprung from nowhere. Never had she so strongly felt the urge to protect and to shield than she did right now, the paleness of Alicia’s skin, and the slimness of her limbs and the bareness of her frame against the paper white sheets were so damningly vulnerable. The suits and the fighting talk made her seem almost superhuman- but really, she was just skin and bone like everyone else. As she helped Alicia fold herself under the covers, avoiding looking too hard, Kalinda had the urge to throw herself on top of her and cover every piece of her skin and shelter her from the storm that she knew she’d have to face in the coming days, weeks. But the storm was mostly going to be inside her head, and it was unavoidable.

It was like she was testing herself- testing how far she could go without snapping. Testing how strongly she had built Kalinda.

She made to leave, pausing only to stroke her hand against Alicia’s forehead as if to stroke away the pain. As she crossed through the door, she felt, rather than heard Alicia’s whisper.

“Stay,”

 _Oh but you don’t know how I want to._ “I’m just going to sleep on the couch, I’m not leaving.”

“No. Stay here,”

Only hearts beating.

Only seconds.

Only-

“OK.”

It was so easy. She removed her boots and placed them next to Alicia’s, hung her jacket over the chair and slipped under the covers, lying stiff-backed, staring rigidly at the ceiling. Alicia made no move to initiate contact, but rolled over to face Kalinda, who, after at least twenty seconds of feeling her left cheek burn under the solid gaze, eventually turned her head to meet Alicia’s eyes.

They were glassy with tears, whether due to the grief or the alcohol or not having blinked in almost half a minute, Kalinda couldn’t tell, but she herself was almost smouldering under the constant eye contact. This was going so far against her instinct that it had long given up trying to stop her, although there was something still keeping every muscle tense.

“Kalinda, I’m so sorry,”

She barely had time to wonder why she was apologizing, what she meant by sorry- let alone think of a response before Alicia’s eyes fluttered shut and there never was any chance of an answer.

She shut her own eyes, but did not sleep. Behind her eyes a thousand images crowded. And they all were screaming.

\- 

One full of a black fire, a deep red burning, longing, an all-consuming darkness. One so shudderingly pale, woeful and hollow and starved of warmth.

Her ache for the one she loved seeped out of her pores like lifeblood. And she was drowning in it.

 

 

Two.

Alicia’s face was unreadable as she reached out a hand to Kalinda’s arm, her palm and fingers caressing her elbow and her thumb sneaking its way into the crook of her arm. Kalinda closed her eyes tight shut, tired of trying to resist Alicia’s insatiability and the part of her brain that was screaming at her to kiss her. She felt a finger circling the sharp point at the tip of her elbow. She felt the sofa move underneath her as Alicia moved closer. She felt the hand on her thigh rising up to her hip, her waist, where it rested, squeezing the soft flesh gently. Her self-control was dissolving with every second her skin was in contact with Alicia’s, the fact that it was through clothes didn’t seem to matter.

When their lips met, Kalinda started slightly: she hadn’t realised that Alicia’s face had been so close to her own. Hardly daring to breathe, she kept still at first as Alicia’s lips grazed her own, the slightest and gentlest of kisses. But as Alicia brought a hand up through her hair to the back of her head to pull her closer, Kalinda couldn’t stop one hand from sliding round Alicia’s waist and the other to the side of her neck, stop her lips from responding to the gentle kisses with a hungry force, or stop her heart from exploding.

She couldn’t remember ever having felt so alive. Her skin felt fire at every point of contact between the two of them, her mind closed to everything apart from the feel of Alicia’s mouth against her mouth and the warmth of her touch.

How she had longed for this.

-

Alicia felt her tears drain away, like someone had pulled a plug behind her eyes and they slipped down and disappeared: this was no time for crying. All thoughts of Will were gone, and yes, this was somewhat cathartic, a way of chasing away the memories of his face, his voice, his touch, but this felt completely separate. Yes, she had had wine. But she was no lightweight and this was no drunken mistake. She couldn’t remember ever having specifically thought about wanting Kalinda like this, but now that her lips were on hers and she could taste her heat, feel her pressed into her skin, she felt a dam break, as if she had been ignoring this for years.

As she let a moan escape her, Kalinda swung one leg over so that she was straddling her. The weight of her breasts was pushing into her own, whilst her leverage gave her the power to lean right in so Alicia was forced to lean her head back, exposing her neck. Why did this feel so good?

This was something else entirely. Not that she had ever imagined kissing Kalinda, but if she had, it would never have been like this. Maybe she would have thought that because of the leather and the unchallengeable confidence that it would have been- rough? Hard edges and croaking, cracking? But this is soft. This is deep. And raw and it’s dislodging things inside of her.

She lets her hands explore, about the soft curves of her waist, round the back across the leather, down her tights-covered thighs. In turn, she feels sharp intakes of breath on her mouth as she increases the pressure of her fingers and is rewarded also by hands probing at the front of her shirt, searching.

Somewhere, way down in the pit of her stomach, where heaviness had been settled for hours now, something moved. Like tectonic plates shifting and readjusting themselves, they seemed to align. Like they were moving into place.


End file.
